The Washington Post reported in December of last year that the 8-year-old Matadi Sela Petit had died during surgery in a Los Angeles hospital. The accident was caused by a “rare and unpredictable genetic reaction to anesthesia,” during an operation to remove a large tumor on the boy’s face.
Matadi Sela Petit
Matadi was born in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (the big Congo you’re probably already thinking of). He was born with a cleft lip, and a tumor on his left cheek. A hospital in Kinshasa, built by the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation, was able to treat the cleft lip. But as the boy grew, so did the tumor on the side of his face.
From an early age, the young boy struggled to integrate with his peers. Matadi found himself increasingly isolated as others in the community talked behind his back, and eventually he stopped going to school. To make matters worse, specialists at the hospital came to the conclusion that it would be impossible to treat his tumor anywhere in the DRC.
Dikembe Mutombo Intervenes
Foundation head and NBA Hall-of-Famer Dikembe Mutombo, known for his on-court defense and off-court humanitarian work, heard about the news from his hospital’s specialists.
After hearing his story, Mutombo arranged for Matadi’s flight to Los Angeles, where the emergency surgery would be performed. All expenses were to be covered by the basketball great personally.
On December 12th, Matadi Sela Petit landed at Los Angeles International Airport. Mutombo met the boy and his father at the terminal.
“A Rare and Unpredictable Genetic Reaction”
Only ten days later on Friday, December 22nd, Mutombo publicly announced that Matadi had died during his surgery.
Other sources reported that Matadi entered cardiac arrest some six hours into the complicated procedure. In his Instagram post, Mutombo wrote only that the child’s death came about as the result of a “rare and unpredictable genetic reaction to anesthesia.”
Details beyond those are scant. The number of known genetic factors that could lead to such an extreme reaction to anesthesia is extremely small. One of the more likely suspects is malignant hyperthermia, an extremely rare genetic condition that can cause a spike in body temperature with exposure to certain anesthetics.
Malignant Hyperthermia
Certain genetic mutations are associated with an increased risk of developing malignant hyperthermia.
People with the condition may never know they have it, until they have a severe averse reaction to anesthesia or undergo testing. In fact, our knowledge of who is affected is so limited, the agreed rate of occurrence ranges anywhere between 1 in 5,000 to 1 in 50,000 anesthetic administrations.
It’s impossible to definitively say with publicly available knowledge what caused Matadi’s death. But malignant hyperthermia, if not addressed quickly by attending doctors, can rapidly lead to fatal complications.
There is often a small degree of risk involved in any medical procedure. Do you think one day accidents like this might be avoided through genetic testing? Share your thoughts with Patient Worthy!
